Game Update and Release Video

Some people were interested in my game after the lesson with Ted Fort. I promised an update, so here it goes. Struggled for the most part last Sunday working on it. Then hit it pretty well on Monday's practice. Tuesday I went out and played a course I never played...7,300 from the tips, 142 slope. Shot an 80. Struggled badly the first 9 holes or so, but in the last 7 holes I really turned it around. Got rained out Wednesday and on Thursday I practiced again and was hitting it pretty well. Friday, played another course I never played before in a cold, 50 degree day with a lot of wind and shot a miserable 83. Although I shot a +2 on the last 11 holes. That's right, I was +10 on the first seven holes.

Think I figured out what was going wrong. As I explained to a friend on Saturday, the downswing is more or less a reaction to the backswing. Before the lesson I had a very closed clubface on the backswing. The 'reaction' (aka the downswing) was to do everything I could to open the clubface hopefully to square at impact. While I had opened the face more on the backswing now, I remember Ted saying that *I* should *feel* like I'm opening up the clubface as far as I can. I think up until the first seven holes on Friday's round, I was opening up the clubface, but not as much as I could on the backswing.

So in essence, I was only partially opening the clubface on the backswing and the face was probably closed to some degree on the backswing. Thus, the reaction was for me to open the clubface on the downswing a little. Or also called 'steering the club.' Before the lesson I was really steering the club. After the lesson I was doing a better job of not closing the clubface, but I was still steering the club, but to a smaller degree.

On Saturday, I shot a +3, 74 with only one birdie and 32 putts. Strangely enough, I got robbed on a 75 foot putt, but that's another story. I really concentrated on opening up that clubface as much as I could on the downswing which would allow for the 'reaction' of releasing the clubhead thru impact instead of steering it. I hit 9 of my first 10 greens and the only one I missed was on one of the tougher par 4's you'll face. On the second nine I hit a lull for five holes, but then regained it and wound up hitting 12 greens and 10 out of 13 fairways, the most I've hit to date in the first 5 weeks of my 'comeback' to the game. I did steer about 4 shots on Saturday, but the others were pretty good.

The biggest issue with the stuff I've worked on is just trusting it.

Here's a solid video by Jeff Lubin pretty much explaining what I'm working on right now:



The only issues I have with this video is that I actually DO NOT think about working the right hand over the left. That can cause too much right hand and the dreaded flip. Instead, I think about rotating the left hand. As Lubin follows thru, you can see the last three fingers of his left hand under the right hand. That's pretty much the swing thought I work with.

Also, as we know with D-Plane, an open clubface really doesn't cause a slice, coming outside-to-in causes a slice. But otherwise, a pretty solid video.



3JACK